opponents. >> if i'm president of the united states, i'll worry about your jobs, not my job. >> and newt gingrich stabbing at the front-runner. >> he'll say anything to win, anything and just like john carey, he speaks french too. >> a freaky friday if ever there were one. yes, we'll have much more on president obama's plan to streamline two federal agencies in a moment, but we begin just hours from a gathered of republican activists in the conservative stronghold of par stanburg, south carolina with appearances by jon huntsman and rick santorum. in the state, the battle for hearts and minds appears to be leaving voters torn between their political dreams and hard

electoral reality. call it a not so civil war and make no mistake, mitt romney's rivals are bitterly taking sides. first up, newt gingrich lashing out at romney, the northeast liber liberal. >> when you get to south carolina which is a very conservative state, it's hard to have a candidate that produced michael dukakis and it's hard to say don't look at my gun control record, don't look at my pro-abortion record, don't look at my tax increases because i have this great commercial that says i'm a conservative. >> newt would rather you didn't look at his record either. not so rick perry. he handles every firearm in the state. >> don't let the pundits tell you they know who will be the

next nominee. the establishment will be just as happy with a big government insider. >> rifles, handguns and bears. perry is krisz krosing the statstat state. >> aren't you looking for someone as president that you can trust. what would give you the idea that someone who has changed his position almost every single issue is someone you can trust. my message is not driven by polls. it's driven my conviction. >> in short, south carolina's primary is just eight days way and on a collision course between mitt romney and the tea party insurgency that may have

no way of stopping him. trey gowdy is a republican. i'm delighted he's joining me. >> we've heard from social con sieves as well as tea party figures on thp broadcast. they express the deep dissatisfaction with mitt romney. they can't seem to settle on anyone else. are you in the same boat? >> in fairness to the tea party, they would be the first to tell you i was not their candidate of choice. i have a good relationship with them. i was a constant dialogue with them. they would pick someone else to speak on their behalf. i'm meeting with various members of the tea party on a regular basis. they are split along the candidates. unlike 2008 when huckabee and

mccane did battle, i hear ele electability more than i thought i would hear it. the one unifying characteristic in all republican primary voters in south carolina is the desire for a new resident at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. if he is the nominee, and i don't know that he will be, but if she, the one thing that unifies everyone in south carolina or the republican side of the ledger is a desire for a few president. >> what do you want to hear? how can they convince you they have the conservative credentials and the electability you talk about to win? >> i want a consistent, reliable

governance paradigm. i like consistency in the way people approach issues. i like authenticity. i want people that are credible and believable. i like what i consider moral courage. >> when you say you're looking for a consistent reliability governance paradigm, i'm assuring that principle can't apply to mitt romney. he's been inckinconsistent. >> it then becomes a question of

whether or not his conversion is what we would call a courthouse conversion where you're not athen tick and you haven't changed your way of thinking. you'll just tell the judge whatever you need to tell him so you don't go to prison. if there are a lot of changes then they have a lot of explaining they need to do. that's not saying you can't overcome that burden of persuasion. you have to persuade people that your epiphany was real. there's been republican leaders who are changed parties. the burden is on him to do the persuading. if he says he's had a legitimate change of heart on an issue, we're willing to hear him out. >> you're beginning to sound like christine o donnell who

says he's been consistent since he changed his mind. do you think he would win the south carolina primary? >> you'd be crazy to ask me to prognostica prognosticate. i think it's fluid. i think the game is in the bat ballots. i think he's the front runner. >> thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. >> thank you for having me. coming up, as mitt appeals to the right, president obama he moves to the center. [ female announcer ] lactaid milk is easy to digest. it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d.

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he's the presidential candidate who wants to lower your taxes and now he wants to shrink the size of government. mitt romney? no. barack obama, of course. >> i'm calling on congress to reinstate be authority that past presidents have had to streamline and reform the executive branch. let me be clear, i will only use this authority for reforms that result in more efficiency, better service and a leaner government. >> yes, the democrat who wants to preserve the payroll tax cut holiday now wants to shrink the size of government. the president is proposing to merge signature agencies including the small business and administration and office of the u.s. trade rep. just like the president, the

agencies are all business. if the president is the candidate of small government, who's the candidate of european welfare at a times. >> he'll say anything to win. just like john carey, he speaks french too. >> good afternoon. >> bonjour. >> president hit all campaign buttons. an out dated bureaucratic maze. all in front of a crowd of small businessmen. i thought he might be speaking on the east side of chicago. >> it was obviously a shrewd

political move. sometimes they call it inoculation. if you think you're going to be attacked managing the government in a way that's probusiness, you want to have something to point to and especially by throwing down the gauntlet on congress. that was the clever part of it. if they don't act and we know they don't want to do anything as helpi ining obama and he cant them as helping the businesses. >> do you agree this is a smart move? >> sure. i think it's a safe bet that nobody really expects much of anything to happen. pretty much anything that the president comes up with at this point is political by definition. they have really left a lot of room in the middle.

you have the front-runner talking about his love of firing people. he can be the guy that is trying to shrink government and really appeal to the moderate voter here. that's what this is about. >> what about the analysis that some people would make that this sounds a bit like a venture capitalist going into a business and what mitt romney calls creative destruction where yo go and you reduce certain waste and do all those kind of things. the president sounding like carl rove. >> they're not going to sell off commerce debt and sale it off for a huge profit. >> you get what i mean? >> yeah. this is where democrats need to do more. al gore did this reinventing government initiative but then

obama did not do this in his first three years because they had so much else on their plate. they argue it's very important to send a signal to the american people that they want to modernize government and prepare it for the 21st century. right now a lot of government computers don't even work. people at home have better computers than people in the government. it's ridiculous amount of duplication overhappening authori overlapping authority. the real bulge in government spending and government employment is at state level. does this mean that romney can point to them and say, you want to layoff people too. sure. it also takes the argument away -- >> the president said maybe 2,000 jobs will be lost.

>> romney's whole reason for running he's put all his chips on this idea he can bring business like principles to the federal government and obama has stolen the march on this. >> dana, why has it taken the president three years to do this given he walked into government three years ago, he must have seen how chaotic it was. >> president obama moves in very deliberate planned out ways. there's the economic stimulus and then there was health care. a lot of people thought health care spent too much time and prevented him from doing other things. if you look at the size and scope of what he's talking about, this is not a major policy initiative. i think this is entirely about putting down a political marker.

everybody agrees that the government is bloated and inefficient here. i think he wants to put down his marker. it's a good time to do that while the republicans are chewing that up. >> what's your assessments of the way things are playing out in south carolina, particularly, in regard to these attacks on mr. romney who is now speaking spanish and french. >> everybody thought it was over at new hampshire. he wins his neighbors state. newt gingrich is within striking distance of mitt romney in south carolina. newt gingrich comes from neighbori neighboring georgia. we're going to have a really interesting florida primary. there's this crazy habit of people wanting to pronounce the

race over as if they're going to get brownie points for saying it's over. what we have learned from covering prior campaigns is there's all kind of things that can come up. is romney still a heavy favorite? yes. he just has to do does he want to go down ugly. he's not ultimately going to win. >> you mean the nomination in. >> the nomination. does he want to go down ugly. >> is newt going to go down ugly and dirty? >> everything from his past would indicate he is. he's got $5 million to do so what the heck. >> i think he will. have great weekend. stay with us. top lines are coming up. it may be friday the 13th, but newt is starring in a nightmare

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demonstrate that republicans have a difficult time taking yes for an answer. what he is talking about is streamlining the federal government. consolidating agencies. >> reducing number of employees. >> reducing the number of employees. some outside of the congress. some republicans outside of the congress and affiliated groups say they are rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. saving would amount to a drop in the bucket of $3 billion. by consolidating these agencies and eliminating the commerce department itself. so far republicans aren't taking the bait. they are being rather conciliatory in reacting to this trying to see how far it goes. congress will have to approve the fact track authority

including yes or no votes in the house and senate. >> do you think this is the president displaying as if it were his organizational management skills to counter act the claims that someone like mitt romney, the likely nominee, who parades his own business skills and experience all the time. >> reporter: i think the president is trying to co-op part of that message. we have seen a memo today from the obama campaign in chicago. her name is stephanie cutter pointing out that bain capital the firm that mitt romney ran wasn't about job creation or creative destruction. it was about maximizing profits and if that meant the loss of,0of thousands of jobs then so be it.

>> what a response. thanks so much. have a great weekend. >> reporter: you too. a postcard from mitt to newt. on my journey across amer,

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>> i'll worry about your job, not my job. >> i like being able to fire people that provide services to me. >> what a relatable story. remember, only run for office when you're rich. >> making 5, 600% profit on companies. anybody can do that if you fire everybody. >> we're drifting into a society where millionaires buy office. >> i think it's fine to talk object those things in quiet rooms. >> why is mitt romney so far ahead of you? >> he's a home boy. >> the havultures are sitting o there on the tree limb. >> a little surprised to see newt gingrich as the first witness for the prosecution. >> the story is about three pme and baby. the baby being newt gingrich. >> i'm proud to announce that i'm former an exploratory committee the lay the ground

work for my candidacy for the president of south carolina. >> this is a country which elected a peanut farmer to the presidency and elected an actor who made two movies with a chimp. >> let's get right to it with our panel this afternoon. she we sherry, as you know and as you just heard, it's been a week of stinging, nasty rhetoric. newt is going after mitt. the establishment is going after newt. a bit of a circular firing squad. this may be an entertaining cage fight for pay-per view television, but this can't be helping the republican party

itself, can it? >> first of all, you know we go through this every year. >> sorry. i don't recall the president of accusing hillary clinton of the things that newt is saying about mitt romney. >> it was pretty nasty. i don't agree with what he's doing. i think he's probably hurting himself. i think he's doing damage to himself. it seems to be something that mitt romney is surviving. the voters are sophisticated enough to know there's more to this. now we have more reports that's coming out that do take time to break down and read. newt gingrich is doing mitt a favor by letting him address this now before the obama attack machine comes in and try to throw this stuff up on the wall. when he was at bain he wasn't around for some of the stuff the super pac has been talking about. it's giving romney chance to address this and so far the

voters seem to listen. it's turning out to be a net gain for mitt romney. >> do you think they should disban their production unit and reliance? >> i think newt is doing all our dirty work for us. newt gingrich like the politics of personal attacks almost as much as mitt romney likes firing people. you put the clip on stephen colbert. i was trying to think of the difference between him and the rest of them and it's they're all funny but it's only colbert trying to be funny. the notion that gingrich can't do anything right from getting his name on the ballot in virginia to launching an effective attack on romney. i think the conservatives are

starting to rally around romney because gingrich has become a spokesman for the audiotape wall street movemefor the occupy wal street movement. >> i'm going to agree with that. he has time to address it. rather than waiting until the general election. he has plenty of time to clean it up. this is a problem for the obama campaign. >> the great thing about newt is even with republicans warning him to slow down and stop this, he comes out with a brand new ad. listen to this. >> and just like john carey, he speaks french too. >> bonjour, mitt romney, but he's still a massachusetts

moderate. >> the ad is quite funny, you have to agree. so many have said newt needs to calm down. he needs to stop and reduce the toxicity of this. >> you've been joking with me and you thought i was so supportive of newt and i was impressed with him that he was so positive and the grown up. >> you can't be impressed anymore. >> i'm not. i thought he was so good in the debates wand the grown up. this goes against that image that we all had of him and the thing that brought him up in the polls. this is disappointing. it's not helping him. it's not hurting romney and it's helping the romney effort. i can assure you the obama campaign is watching this because it's taking away something they desperately wanted to use and they don't have that anymore. >> i agree that newt looks about

as sincere and authentic as a jersey shore can. let me tell you why it's not helping. you have republicans like gingrich and like perry saying he's not a credible messenger on the economy. it's hard to see with that combination of him being attacked from the left and the right how he can be an effective messenger and spokesman on the economy given the fact that obama has turned around an economy which was contracting at negative 6% -- >> turn it around? >> yes. >> hang on a second, cheri. >> it was contracting at negative six. we are creating 200,000 jobs a month. we have not seen this turn around in our lifetime. >> you know the president's

approval rating has been going up. some people say that's because of the performance of republicans in the debates, but the increasing science of some green shoots of recovery plus these approval numbers for the president. i think you have to accept don't you? >> no. >> he is making progress through this period of republican pri pair. >> i think the primary might be helping. here is where you have to look at the damaging numbers. take the state of florida. in 2008, he got 57% of the hispanic vote and now he has 37% the florida has been considered one of those toss upstates. you can almost start looking at that as lean republican. when you have the minority vote and the hispanic unemployment numbers usually about two points higher than the rest of the country and if they're disappointed in this president, they arie looking at jobs.

you start looking at,000 these things are nibbling around the edges, the people he thought he could count onto be his core base, that's where he has the problem. he's hemorrhaging. he can't win. >> we do respects you losing the forest for the trees. his job approval was negative. it's now almost even. the republican primary together with the loss of the fight on the payroll tax has created almost a 17 point bump for obama. i think the evidence is overwhelming. >> i wish he had more time. thank you so much for joining us. have a great weekend. coming up, where the the tea party and where are the evangelicals in the mitt alternatives take aim at the front-runner in south carolina.

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use campbell's cream of chicken soup to make easy enchiladas, cheesy chicken & rice, and other chicken dishes that are oh...so...whoa. campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. every one knows that when it comes to the campaign trail your message can't always carry you to the top. mitt romney refuses to answer questions of his campaign bundlers. one man may not be very far from putting a face to those big donations. mike, not 24 hours ago, we had you on this broadcast. since then you've broken a major story about mitt's money trail. what have you got? >> i don't know how much of a shock it will be to people but

it turns out the big fundraisers from the romney presidential campaign turn out to be a lot of tycoons of private equity industry that's been at the center of this debate about bain capital. the romney campaign has not disclosed the names of its bundlers. the big fund raisers that bring in large sums of cash. the obama cam hpaign has done ts year and last cycle. if you look at the invitations to fund raisers, you look at the event co-host. the ones that are responsible for bringing in $50,000 or more. it turns out there's a lot of these private equity firms. of the 24 events, two-thirds are

from the private connect industry. >> wow. thanks so much. now to some breaking news. a ruling has come down in the virginia ballot case. rick perry, newt gingrich, rick santorum and jon huntsman sued to get their name on the ballot there. they failed to collect the 10,000 signatures. pete, what is the ruling? >> the ruling is the candidates lose. what the judge says here is i think they have got a good argument here that the requirements in virginia may be unconstitutional. 10,000 signatures, the highest number in the nation, distributed with 400 signatures and bar on using out of state volunteers to circulate the petitions. all good arguments. the problem is the candidates waited too long to raise the arguments. he said they knew in advance

well before trying to get on the ballot what the requirements were and they waited too long to file their challenge. he cite at legal doctrine that says if you accept the terms of something and act like it's okay, it will be a little late to raise your hand and say i think this is unconstitutional. he said it wouldn't be fair to virginia to stop the process now. he says it would deprive virginia of its right not only to conduct the primary in an orderly way but also to insist the candidate show broad support and that's one of the arguments that virginia makes here. by requiring that citizens circulate the petitions and that you get signatures from all over the state, you're showing the broad support. what are the next steps? the state is free to go ahead and start printing the ballots which it will do. the republicans can try to

appeal to the federal court of appeals, which is also in richmond, but it seems the odds of this are pretty remote. i should point out that from the beginning, in legal sko lcholaro have looked at this lawsuit said it probably won't work for the reason the judge cited today. they waited too long. >> i guess it's a fairly damming criticism of them to properly organize themselves. >> some of them did manage to follow to rules and did get on the primary. what the candidates for those that didn't make it on, perry, huntsman, santorum, gingrich. they say they did what other candidates do. they hired consultants to help them and they got ripped off. that's another matter. the judge says nay knew what the rules were. they accepted them. they tried the play by the rules

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newt gingrich, let's see, three marriages and three religious conversions and millions from lobbying. rick perry may win the batting of some evangelical leaders but like santorum, perry may have talked his way out of contention. that leaves mitt romney.

what a quandary for voters in south carolina. this is to say nothing of the tea party big business background. jackson phillips is the founder of the tea party nation. thank you both for joining us. now that he's in south carolina, mitt romney is trying to assure voters that he's working along the tea party line on the economy while he's defending his switch from favoring a woman's right to choose. now saying he's pro-life. watch this. >> this is a time when people care about the economy and the scale of government. it's the message of the tea party. it's the message of the republican party. and i have spent my life learning how to balance budgets, to cut back where cuts are necessary. it was highly publicized in new england and the boston papers

and the boston stations that i became pro-life, described why i became pro-life. i'm proud of that fact and continue to make that message. >> do tea party voters care about a candidate's religious believ believes? or are they concerned with a strong hatred for president obama? >> you're assuming a few facts not in evidence. we don't like -- it's not that we don't like obama, we don't like his policies. as far as mitt romney's religion is concerned, the fact that he's mormon, the people i'm talking to doesn't matter. i'm concerned about his policies. and unfortunate lirks if you look at mitt romney's track record, not what he says but when he did when he was governor, he was just as far to the left as barack obama is. that's why we don't like him in the tea party and that's why folks in south carolina don't like him.

>> david, john f. kennedy faced the same problem with his religion. running as a catholic. here's how he chose to deal with the issue. watch this. >> i'm not the catholic candidate for president. i'm a democratic party's candidate for president who happens also to be a catholic. i do not speak for my church on public matters and the church does not speak for me. >> don't you think, david, that it would serve mitt romney better if he came out and confronted the issue of mormonism and did what john f. kennedy did. and to extent, what the president did when he was linked with jeremiah wright where he described himself different. >> i think to a degree, you make a good argument. he needs to address the mormonism. there are a number of evangelicals who are deeply

suspicious of mormonism. the problem is if mitt comes out and do that publically, does he draw more attention to mormonism or deflect the problems about his faith? with john f. kennedy, he was seen as the other. one was roman catholic. mormons, one of the problems that southern baptists have with mormons is they are so much alike. they have the same dna. they are competitors to a degree. is he going to overcome that suspicion? >> you said newt gingrich will be the nominee and that tea partiers would never, as you said, back mitt romney. if it comes down to mitt romney and president obama, is the tea party going to go with romney or just abstain on election day? >> we have done some surveys about that. depending on which survey we have done, anywhere from one-third to one-half of the tea party members say if romney is the nominee, we're not backing

him. we're not even voting for him. what that will be when it comes down to voting, maybe a little bit of a different story, but the fact is, there's a huge sentiment that says we are not voting for mitt romney if he's the normminee because mitt romn is a liberal. and the tea party is a conservative movement. >> thank you so much. i'm afraid we have run out of time. >> thank you. happy friday the 13th. >> we'll be right back. ♪ baby, baby, come along ♪ baby, baby, come along with me ♪ [ air horn blows ] ♪ i love you and i need you ♪ just to hug and squeeze you ♪ baby, why can't you see? [ female announcer ] the space of a small suv. the fuel efficiency of a prius. ♪ well, baby, can't you see the all-new prius v from toyota. ♪ come along with me

but does bringing a floor back to life really make us heroes? [ chuckles ] yes. yes, it does. ♪ call 1-800-steemer it's time now to clear the air. on monday as we do every year, the nation will pause to reflect upon the life and leadership of one remarkable american. the reverend dr. martin luther king jr. in honor of his birthday, there will be a wreath-laying ceremony on the national mall, which is already welcomed over two million visitors since it was officially inaugurated last summer. dr. king is best known for calling government to account.

for demanding that a nation to grant all of its citizens equal rights, justice, and the dignity that coming with being treated fairly and without discrimination. but dr. king was also deeply critical of the church, particularly in the letter he wrote from birmingham jail in april of 1963. it has resonance today where voters will soon collect their preferred republican nominee to contest the presidential election. instead of challenging politicians and institutions, dr. king said this about the church of the 1960s. the contemporary church is a weak, ineffect yule voice with an uncertain sound. so often it is the arch defender of the status quo. far from being disturbed, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the

church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are. this week saw the publication of a new poll that it looked at current conflicts in american society. the figures are revealing. 34% of americans believe there are strong conflicts between the young and old. 38% believe there are strong conflicts between blacks and whites in our society. but an astonishing 66% now believe there is serious conflict between the rich and the poor. now we know that politicians will invoke class warfare when it suits their ambitions. but isn't it time that the church had something to say about these conflicts? what dr. king was saying in that remarkable jail is that the church should remind itself that it's led not by a wealthy politician, but by a skilled manual worker who